Elizabeth Cara

Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Cara is a Professor at San Jose State University where she is completing her 26- year education career by teaching two part time classes and completing Department Program Planning for the university. She has followed her philosophy that systems work best when each member contributes their knowledge and time to the system. To that end she has worked and chaired several important university committees, provided leadership for the faculty on the Academic Senate and California Faculty Association fostering relationships between the administration and faculty.

She has contributed to the Department and college by serving and chairing several university and department committees most notably the Retention, Tenure and Promotion Committee, and as acting chair, the college chairs and director’s committee. In addition, she is known for stepping up to do what is needed, such as developing new and innovative classes and fieldwork initiatives, fostering relationships with other disciplines and community programs. She is an integral member in the development and fostering of the occupational therapy department’s Certificate post-professional program in Mindfulness for Healthcare Practitioners that will roll out in the Summer of 2018 and she was an important facilitator of the department’s on-line Post-Professional Master’s Program and Faculty-Led International Programs.

She has served the occupational therapy community and profession by publishing the first comprehensive textbook in psychosocial occupational therapy, now in the fourth edition development, developing and working in innovative programs in San Francisco, and devoting her time and expertise with numerous professional organizations and presentations over 26 years, statewide, nationally and internationally. In those presentations and interdisciplinary contacts she has brought her wide knowledge of mental health, education, occupational therapy, infant and parent mental health, groups, assertiveness training, psychotherapy, etc.

She is known in the university and San Francisco Bay Area community for her collaborative and collegial efforts and support for faculty and occupational therapy practitioners.

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